What are parents afraid of their kids reading?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is an odd question. Are you not familiar with the fact that books are written about anything and everything? Whatever topic she didnt want her 11 year old exposed to is what that book was about. Sex, rape, drugs, suicide, violence, death, who knows maybe it was conservative economics or new age philosophy. You can of course debate which of these is worth censoring or not, but without knowing the exact book, you cant judge. Its normal for parents to want to understand what their child is consuming in all forms.

+1

Sometimes kids reading skills are higher than their maturity level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this really that confusing, OP? Do you not read? There are lots of topics young kids are not mature enough for, regardless of reading level. There are lots of topics that may be perfectly fine for most kids, but for that kid, because of their specific developmental stage or life experiences, would find upsetting or inappropriate.

I never thought I would be the parent who banned Garfield but it turns out John spends a lot of time dieting and my 8 year old for whatever reason latched onto that and suddenly every meal was a conversation about counting calories and what the scale is going to look like tomorrow. So I took away Garfield for a little while. I'm sure lots of parents were judging me in the library when I had to keep telling him no on Garfield but they don't have to eat breakfast with us.

ITA agree with you and also this is an hilarious story. I had completely forgotten that Jon was a dieter and used to talk about "the scale" a lot (though to be fair, I think Garfield used to counterbalance this approach by making fun of him and eating lasagna in front of him, so it's a bit vague where the cartoon comes down on weight loss). But this is a perfect example of why a parent is usually better qualified to make choices about what their kid should be reading or exposed to than other people, and don't need to be second guessed constantly. I would also be alarmed if my 8 yr old was getting acclimated to diet culture from old Garfield cartoons and that's a perfectly good reason to move him away from that content.

I totally forgot about this!! Jon would be cancelled now.

Or he and Cathy would become friends who encourage each other to have a more body-positive approach to life. They could take up pickleball together and commiserate over both having an overbearing and critical presence in their lives undermining their self esteem (Cathy's mom and Jon's cat).

[Anonymous]

I don't hate if a parent wants to control what his/her child reads. I do hate if a parent wants to control what every kid reads. So if a parent goes to the library and tells their kid, hey you can't read Cujo, it's too scary for you...I'm good with that. But if that parent went to the library and said, hey no one can read Cujo, it's too scary...yeah, I got a problem with that. There are few things I truly hate more than book banning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't hate if a parent wants to control what his/her child reads. I do hate if a parent wants to control what every kid reads. So if a parent goes to the library and tells their kid, hey you can't read Cujo, it's too scary for you...I'm good with that. But if that parent went to the library and said, hey no one can read Cujo, it's too scary...yeah, I got a problem with that. There are few things I truly hate more than book banning.

I feel like OP and others have tried to make this about book banning, but it's really clear from the anecdote that this parent was not trying to ban any books. She just didn't think a book was appropriate for her specific kid.

Only really ridiculous people support book banning. I know such people exist and have been politically empowered in recent years, but no thinking person wants to literally ban books. Parents wanting to be thoughtful about what books they expose young kids to is pretty normal though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So I was at the library the other day and a girl who looked about 11 years old came in with a woman who was presumably her mom. She picked out a book for school her and brought it to her mom and her mom kept insisting the book is inappropriate and wouldn't let her check out the book. Just why. What the fuсk was she afraid of her kid reading? It's not like she was checking out a porn magazine.

Could be anything from course language to sex to same sex relationship to dating at all or something mom considers too violent or scary or different religious beliefs , maybe it didn't meet the standards for a book report.it could be a anything. I'm assuming you're a parent as you're posting here and you well know every parent has different opinions as long as she wasn't trying to ban it for everyone else it doesn't matter much.

[Anonymous]

Also have to laugh about how DCUMers can't resist a humble brag who cares about your advanced reader

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That book Lawn Boy

But why? It has great and deep things, with lines like “ What if I told you I touched another guy’s dick?” I said. … “What if I told you I sucked it?” … “I was ten years old, but it’s true. I put Doug Goble’s dick in my mouth.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That book Lawn Boy

But why? It has great and deep things, with lines like “ What if I told you I touched another guy’s dick?” I said. … “What if I told you I sucked it?” … “I was ten years old, but it’s true. I put Doug Goble’s dick in my mouth.”

We all know why people want to normalize this content for 10 year olds.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think OP is a parent. I think it’s a Gen Z liberal offended by what she overreacted to and equated to book banning.

FWIW, I am also liberal, but I have a job in which I work with young adults, mostly women, who tend toward being liberal. It is phenomenal the amount of things they misunderstand and fly off the handle about. It would be funny if it wasn’t so damaging to the reputation of other liberals. The OP’s post really feels like that to me. It’s definitely not a question any reasonable person actually involved in the raising of a child would ask.

[Anonymous]

My DD started reading smut on her Kindle at age 10 and not catching that as soon as it started happening has been one of my biggest parenting regrets.

[Anonymous]

I got hold of my grandma's smutty romance novels when I was about 11, but honestly nothing bad came of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD started reading smut on her Kindle at age 10 and not catching that as soon as it started happening has been one of my biggest parenting regrets.

Same. A lot of the literature for late elementary and middle schoolers promote gender identity experimentation, and same sex attraction. I had no idea how pervasive it is. It’s definitely more explicit than the Judy Blume of my childhood.

[Anonymous]

If the kid is able to read the words and comfortable reading aloud and talking about it with me? They can read anything they want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do we have a rating system for movies? There is a difference between G rated movies and R-rated movies.

There’s a big difference between visualizing what is read vs passively watching someone else’s visualization. Younger/more immature kids have less ability to visualize violence. If a child doesn’t want to share what they read, if it’s too embarrassing or scary to read aloud, if they’re too embarrassed to talk about it? They need to wait.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That book Lawn Boy

But why? It has great and deep things, with lines like “ What if I told you I touched another guy’s dick?” I said. … “What if I told you I sucked it?” … “I was ten years old, but it’s true. I put Doug Goble’s dick in my mouth.”

We all know why people want to normalize this content for 10 year olds.

Not Lawn Boy again.

1) This book is not intended for 10-year-olds. No one is advocating for this book to be marketed to or suggested to 10-year-olds. The main character is an ADULT talking about something that happened to him AS a 10-year-old. The character has a difficult history, which he has not healed from. The character is trying to shock the character he's talking to, so he says it in a shocking way (and although this kind of thing DOES happen to more kids than we'd like to think, it IS shocking) but not a titillating or "sexy" way. No one who reads this scene in context and good faith could possibly honestly believe that the author is... what, trying to get 10-year-olds (who the book is not intended for) to have oral sex? Because he gets off on that or something? Is that what the "we all know why" statement is supposed to imply?
2) Depiction is discussion, not approval or normalization. The character talking abouts something does not mean the author is advocating for it. Many, many books depict a character talking about something inappropriate or harmful without people assuming that the AUTHOR is in favor of the harmful thing being discussed. This is basic literacy.